


Georgia Rose

by V_V_lala



Category: The Best Song Ever - Gabrielle Aplin
Genre: Dancing, F/F, Flirting, Memories, POV First Person, Roof Sex, Semi-Public Sex, college students
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 15:52:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5381078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_V_lala/pseuds/V_V_lala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> I always wondered if she had simply been a dream, some kind of delusion. Or perhaps the guardian angel of all gawky, senior college students who haven’t yet had their earth-shattering-college-experience lay yet. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Georgia Rose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littlerobbergirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlerobbergirl/gifts).



I did not think I would ever return to the University of St. Paul after graduation. Not because I had little affection for the place, but because my life carried me so far and wide from the small alcove where my alma mater made its home, that I could hardly imagine a chain of circumstances that would bring me back. Yet here I was, nearly twelve years later, driving down the narrow coast road leading up to the small college town where I spent the strange and spectacular years of my early adulthood. 

I had changed much since then, or so everyone said. Senior year of college I was a gawky, mildly socially awkward history and literature double major with mousy blonde hair, constantly pulled out of my face with a braid of a bun, glasses and a dirty mouth for which I had my three older brothers to thank. I could not say what had changed since then. I still spent more of my time with books than with people and I never quite managed to replace the glasses with contacts. Dustin Ketcher, who invited me here in the first place, said it was my professional poise, my ability to assert space. Perhaps all that speaking at conferences had finally taught me to not spout out the first damned thing that came to mind. Not to mention using the F-word with a little less regularity. 

I did not particularly feel any different, though. 

I went to the library first thing, as research was the main objective of my visit. It seemed that somehow St. Paul was one of the few places in the world with particular documents relating to the subject of my newest book in its archives. One of the former deans must have been a fan. I spent the entire first half of the day on research and probably would have skipped dinner as well as lunch if Dustin did not text me and ask when I was going to eat – six or seven? Obviously, he was certain that “not at all” was not even an option. Deciding he was probably right, I packed up my things and went to meet him at his apartment, several blocks deep into the college town surrounding campus. 

The sun was going down and students were milling around in the streets, walking or biking. For the first time that day, I actually bothered to look around and indulge the inevitable wave of nostalgia. There was the bus stop where one could catch the 24 Line and go into the city for a night of clubbing. And there was the coffee shop where I had written a third of my term papers while drinking, likely, half their stock of coffee. And there was the intersection of Elm and Maple where the homecoming parade began its procession to the stadium, trailing half-drunk, shouting students in its wake. And there was the house on Corvet Lane where half of my friends roomed together during our senior year and, to be honest, I probably spent more time there than at my actual apartment. 

It was where I met her. 

I sucked in a breath and stopped, looking up at the shabby, two-story building. It looked abandoned, like no one was living in it anymore. Its pale blue paint was peeling away and several steps on the porch staircase had caved in or broken off. The windows were shuttered and the front lawn overrun with weeds. But it was still the same house and in my mind’s eye it was just like it had been all those years ago when we had thrown that big Halloween party. We hadn’t even thought that anyone would come, given that all the frats were giving parties of their own. But, just in case, we ordered the pizza, bought the vodka and blasted the music. And, miraculously, people came. 

And so did she. Georgia Rose. The most beautiful girl I had ever seen…

 

I was leaning against the kitchen counter, nursing a red cup half-full of jungle juice and wondering if it was worth it to lay off the alcohol for the rest of the night. To the right, a game of bear pong was in progress and to the left was a mass of writhing bodies, dancing away to the electro music one of my friends had picked out. We had actually attempted to play something Halloween-themed to begin with, but two drinks in everyone decided that the holiday was more about sexy bunnies and nurses than ghosts and monsters, anyway. 

It was only just after eleven so people were still arriving. My view of the front door was mostly unobstructed, so I got to giggle in tipsy excitement at the looks on people’s faces when Jake and Lindsay, who were dressed as gargoyle guardians and had the talent of standing very still, would suddenly come alive and make grabs at people right as they were walking through the door. 

And then she came, dressed in a little green dress with a necklace of bright-red apples and a large, snake-shaped hairpin holding up a mass of glowing ginger curls in a messy, waterfall hairstyle. She breezed past Jake and Lindsay without giving them a single look and went straight for the drinks. 

I nearly dropped my red cup. She was utterly gorgeous and had the most magnetic hold on the space around her. It was like all the light in the room bent to single her out. I was tipsy, but I wasn’t drunk enough for hallucinations. She was real and yet unreal all at once. I tiptoed, to see if I could get a glimpse of her—

\--and nearly fell over when a voice said close to my ear, “Do you guys have any more vodka?”

“Ahhh…” I spun around and found myself looking into a pair of brilliant green eyes. The redhead beauty was noticeably taller than me and I had to make an actual effort to look up into her face instead of staring at her boobs. “Yea. Probably.” I rummaged around in the kitchen for an extra bottle. She watched me as I looked around and I could feel my face burning up. She was so open about her staring, like it wasn’t strange to ogle strangers in the middle of their friends’ kitchen. I found a bottle and handed it to her with a tentative smile. 

“Take a shot with me?” she asked. 

“I already have a drink,” I said, nodding at my red cup. 

“It’s not a shot though.” She smiled brightly and everything in me became warm and malleable and squishy. 

“Ok.” I set aside my drink and reached for a shot glass. 

“ _Faire schmolitz_?” 

I blinked. “What?” 

She laughed, tossing her head back. “It’s this thing they do in Romandy and Russia where two people drink simultaneously with their elbows intertwined. It’s supposed to be a sign of good intentions and friendship.”

I could feel myself flushing, the dim lighting in the kitchen distorting all the shadows. I could hardly take my eyes off this girl. “But we don’t…know each other at all. I don’t even know your name.”

She laughed, seemingly undeterred. “My name’s Georgia Rose.”

“Seriously?” At that point, I started to suspect that this was some kind of prank. 

She leaned against the counter next to me. “I know. But seriously.” She threw back her shot and kept talking. She was a sociology major and an out-of-state student. Her parents lived in Georgia – and apparently loved it there, if her name was anything to go by – and her father was a dentist. She had one younger sister, still in high school, and was currently very single. She had a pleasant way about her, carefree and confidant but not condescending. She was funny and sarcastic and I felt like the entire party faded away around us. 

I told her a little about myself as well, trying to not stumble over words in my excitement. Finally, I said, “Do you want to take another shot? In that fancy way you mentioned?”

She smiled, a little triumphantly and poured us shots. We drank, elbows intertwined, and I closed my eyes, hoping that would somehow help me better feel the silky smoothness of her arms. When I opened my eyes, I was staring straight into hers and she was watching me with a small quirk of her mouth. “It’s a little crowded in here,” I said, feeling my voice go hoarse, hoping I had not misread her body language, otherwise this would be very awkward. “You wanna go?”

“Hmm?”

I flushed. Then, despite my better judgement, tiptoed up and kissed her. It was a very brief, hurried kiss, caught in a moment between the shadows in the kitchen. "Can I take you home with me?"

She laughed and shook her head, but did not move away. "Never in your wildest dreams." She took my hand and tugged me toward where everyone was dancing. “I love this song. We need to dance.” 

The song they were playing in that moment was a little slower than the other songs had been, but still with a booming, rhythmic beat. Georgia Rose wound her arms around my waist and I instantly felt one of her hips pressing against my lower abdomen. I sucked in a breath and pushed my own hips forward, rubbing against her bare thigh. 

There were words to the song. I have forgotten them since then, but that night I knew them. They pulsed in my head and my chest, rang in my earls, blurred together and drowned in Georgia Rose’s bottomless eyes. Her lips moved just slightly, echoing the words with wispy breaths that did not quite reach my skin. 

I took her up to the roof after the song was done, found the flat section behind the chimney and pushed her against the bricks. She laughed, probably at the expression I wore, at my desperation. “Tell me, sweet thing, what would you like to do to me?”

I was lost by then, my control completely evaporated by the heat between us. My hands were on her shoulders and rapidly sliding down to her waste, then to her thighs, pushing up her tiny dress. “I want to fuck you against this wall,” I murmured in a heady rush, all earlier embarrassment gone. “I want to fuck you like Adam fucked Eve.” 

She laughed – a hoarse, rough sound that made the tight feeling between my legs almost painful. “I might be Eve, but you’re not dressed as Adam.”

“I’m dressed like that douche from _Brink!_ so…it’ll do.” I slid my hand up her thigh, searching…finding. “ _Fuck._ You’re so wet. _Jesus Christ._ ”

“You’ve got a dirty mouth, sweet thing.” Her lips covered mine and I closed my eyes, drinking in her taste, sliding my hand into her, feeling her shudder under my touch. She wrestled off my yellow jersey and black t-shirt, worked her long-fingered hands over my neck and the edges of my bra until I could hardly concentrate on what I was doing. 

We became a tangled, turbulent mess, melting with the darkness, shielded by the chimney from the world. All my senses were her. Her and the echoes of that song, the one we had danced too, its rhythm ingrained on my heart.

When it was over and the world came back to some semblance of meaningful, we were curled up together against the chimney, staring up into the starry sky, slowly starting to feel the cold night air once again. I had never felt so at peace. “My heart…” I managed quietly, feeling a sense of dread slowly swallow me, as I really did not think I could ever forget this, ever get over it. “Can you give it back to me?”

“Never in your wildest dreams.” 

 

The memories faded as they came, leaving behind a momentary emptiness of time. I didn’t remember much more of that night – my friends told me I ended up passed out on their couch some time later. Georgia Rose never came around again, I never saw her on campus. Up until this point, I always wondered if she had simply been a dream, some kind of delusion. Or perhaps the guardian angel of all gawky, senior college students who haven’t yet had their earth-shattering-college-experience lay yet. But being at that house again made me remember all the things – the smoothness of her skin, the heat of her body, the smell of her perfume. And that song. Not delusion could be so real. 

I would have to ask Dustin what that song was, maybe he would remember. As I continued walking through the small college town, away from the now-abandoned house, I could almost hum out the melody, almost put together a lyric. 

Not that it mattered, really: I already knew it had been the Best Song Ever, and that was all I needed to know.


End file.
